A Fine Passion (8 page)

When he turned into the village street and, looking ahead, saw her talking to the innkeeper, Jed Butler, then saw them go into the tap, he couldn’t stop his reaction.

Leaving Challenger with Jed’s son in the yard behind the inn, he entered the tap quietly through the side door. Neither Clarice nor Jed heard him; they were standing facing the long, scarred bar, studying it and the wall behind it. Halting in the shadows behind them, Jack listened.

“I thought as how, if we knock out that wall there, we’ll be able to open up that back parlor. Hardly ever used, it is, and Betsy says as we could serve food for the lads in there. They won’t go into the dining room, o’course, and with their boots an’ all, we’d not want them to, and summer they do like the tables outdoors, but in winter, we could make this place right snug, and they’d have some place by the bar to eat as well as drink.”

Boadicea had been nodding slowly throughout. “I think that’s an excellent idea, but—”

“Lady Clarice.” Jack heard the hard command in his voice; he softened it as Clarice and Jed swung to face him, and nodded genially to the innkeeper. “Jed.”

Jed blinked, then bobbed his head. “M’lord.”

Clarice scanned his face. She opened her mouth.

Before she could speak, Jack seized her hand. “If you’ll excuse us, Jed, I want a few words with Lady Clarice.” He met her gaze briefly as he turned to the door. “Outside.”

He would have hauled her out with him—towed her—but after that fleeting exchange of glances she went with him readily if not willingly, giving him, his temper, not even that much satisfaction. Her hand in his, he led her out of the side door, across the grassed lane that led to the rear yard, making for the inn’s orchard beyond. He strode for the gap in the orchard wall, registering that Boadicea’s long legs kept pace without hurrying in the least.

The distracting observation only sharpened his flinty mood.

Three stone steps led into the orchard; he went down them and continued beneath the trees. Without warning, Boadicea halted, dug in her heels, and pulled back. “Lord Warnefleet!”

“Jack.” Curt, abrupt, he flung the name over his shoulder and jerked her on. With a gasp—stifled—she was forced to follow; he wanted to be far enough from the lane so no one passing would be able to hear them. “If you’re going to be me, you might at least use my name!”

“Wh—what?”

“Don’t play the innocent—it doesn’t become you.”

An instant passed, then she said, “I beg your pardon?”

Her voice had turned to ice, dripping with chilly warning. He ignored it. “As well you might.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?”

They were in the middle of the orchard with nothing but trees and apple blossom for company. Jack halted and swung to face her. “Not yet.”

He still held her hand; they were close, only a foot between them.

She read his eyes; he thought hers widened.

“It may interest you to know that while reacquainting myself with my estate, with all the numerous aspects of it, one refrain has sounded again and again—‘Lady Clarice suggested.’ Lady Clarice suggested this, Lady Clarice suggested that—there seems very little of my business, madam, in which you haven’t had a hand!”

Clarice drew breath, straightened, stiffened. A deadening feeling swelled in the pit of her stomach; she was fairly sure she knew what was coming. She fought to keep her expression impassive, to hide any reaction to his biting words.

She continued to meet his aggravated hazel gaze. Irritation—very male, highly charged—poured from him.

“And now, after an entire day of hearing just how busy you’ve been over the years I’ve been away, I discover you consulting over structural alterations to the inn.”

He paused, his gaze pinning her. “It may interest you to know that I own the inn.” His tone was cutting. “No changes should be made without my express approval—”

“Indeed.” She kept her tone even; if they both lost their tempers, there would be hell to pay. “And if you had let me finish what I was saying to Jed, you would have heard me tell him that as the manor owned the inn, before he made any alterations to the fabric he should seek the estate’s permission, and as you were now home, he should approach you directly.”

He shut his lips. But there was no taking back what he’d already said. Already revealed. They both knew it.

She wondered what he would do. Their gazes remained locked, but she couldn’t read what passed behind the hard agate of his eyes.

Eventually, he drew in a huge breath; his chest swelled, his long fingers uncurled, releasing her hand, but the dangerous tension riding him abated not one jot.

“Lady Clarice.” His accents were still clipped, his tone still cutting. “I would greatly appreciate it if henceforth, should any of my people approach you for assistance on any subject that falls within Avening Manor’s purlieu, you would refer them directly to me.”

Before he could add anything further, she nodded, as abrupt and curt as he. “As you wish, Lord Warnefleet.”

He blinked. Lifting her head, she grasped the moment to add, “I’m sorry that my advising your people has discomposed you. In my defence, their need was real, you weren’t here, but I was. For seven years, that was the case—asking me has become their habit. It will, necessarily, take some time for them to realize that you are now here for them to approach. I fear I cannot pretend to any regret that I helped them, however, I can assure you that I will from now on refer all their requests to you.”

With her most regal nod, she turned away. “I bid you good day, Lord Warnefleet.”

She took two steps, then stopped. Head rising, she asked without turning, “Incidentally, did you discover any instance in which my advice to your people caused any detriment of any kind to them or to the estate?”

After a moment, he replied, “No.”

She nodded, lips twisting. “Just so.”

Without glancing back, she walked calmly to the lane, and then around the inn.

Jack stood in the orchard, under the blasted apple blossom, and watched her go. Watched her walk away, her spine stiff, her movements gracefully controlled, yet somehow screaming of injury.

But he’d done the right thing. He was home now, there for his people to consult. Their dependency on her had to stop, and there was realistically only one way to achieve that….

He exhaled; hands rising to his hips, he looked up at the clouds of pink and white blossoms, and inwardly swore. Perhaps he should have been more tactful. Perhaps he shouldn’t have lost…he wasn’t even sure it was his temper that had driven him, rather than something more primitive, some form of territorial imperative.

Regardless, he’d been within his rights, yet…he was sorry to see the back of her like that, walking away from him.

Sorry to have her faintly contemptuous, definitely cold “Lord Warnefleet” ringing in his ears.

He’d definitely done the right thing. Jack repeated that refrain as, after breakfast the next day, he settled in his study to go over the projected accounts. He was adding figures when Howlett tapped on the door.

Jack looked up as Howlett entered, carefully closing the door behind him.

“My lord.” Howlett looked confused. “Mrs. Swithins is here—she wishes to discuss the roster for supplying the church flowers.”

Jack looked blank.

Howlett hurried on, “Lady Clarice usually—”

“No, no.” Jack laid down his pen. “Show Mrs. Swithins in.”

Howlett looked uncertain, but did. Mrs. Swithins proved to be a large, regrettably hatchet-faced lady dressed in a style both more severe and more formal than generally favored by country ladies of her station. Her woollen coat had a fur collar; her poke bonnet was anchored by a wide ribbon tied in a large bow beneath her second chin.

Rising, Jack smiled his charming smile, rapidly revising his guess of who Mrs. Swithins was. He’d heard James’s new curate, whom he’d yet to meet, was a Mr. Swithins; Jack had assumed Mrs. Swithins to be the curate’s wife. This woman, however, had to be Swithins’s mother.

“Mrs. Swithins.” He waved her to a chair.

“Lord Warnefleet.” She bobbed a curtsy and swept forward to perch, spine rigid, on the edge of the chair. “I’m exceedingly glad to see you returned, sir, hale and whole and prepared to take up the duties that are rightfully yours.”

She smiled up at him, but the gesture failed to soften her stony eyes. Jack wondered why hearing her declare his state perfectly accurately made him want to deny it, or at least equivocate.

“I understand you have some questions about some roster for the church.” Resuming his seat, Jack assumed a wryly apologetic expression guaranteed to gain the sympathy of the most hard-hearted. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me. Having just returned, I’m unaware of just what roster you’re referring to.”

“Well!” Mrs. Swithins’s bosom swelled impressively. “I can assist you there. It’s the supply of the flowers for the Sunday and Wednesday services.”

Jack sat back and listened as Mrs. Swithins described the roster that Clarice had set in train, which had Mrs. Swithins supplying the flowers for every second Sunday, and the alternate Wednesdays.

“It would simplify matters considerably, my lord, if the roster was reorganized so that I supplied the floral arrangements for each Sunday, and the others between them took care of every Wednesday.” Mrs. Swithins paused, eyeing him, then added, “So much easier for all of us not to have to try and remember which week is which.”

Jack raised his brows. “That seems reasonable enough.” A tiny voice whispered that Clarice wouldn’t have instituted a complicated roster if a simple one would have sufficed; he ignored it and leaned forward. “I see no reason not to re-vamp the roster as you suggest. Now.” He drew a sheet of paper to him. “Who are the other ladies involved?”

Mrs. Swithins beamed. “Oh, you don’t need to bother informing them, my lord.” She all but preened as she stood. “I’ll be happy to spread the word.”

Instinct flared, combining with that tiny voice to niggle; rising to see Mrs. Swithins out, Jack quashed both. It was only the church flowers, for heaven’s sake, hardly a matter of life and death.

With Mrs. Swithins gone, clearly delighted with her first encounter with the new Lord Warnefleet, he settled into his chair once more and returned to his projections.

He was still wrestling with his crop returns—there was some element contributing to the past years’ progressively increasing totals that he couldn’t identify—when Howlett looked in to announce luncheon.

Jack rose and stretched, inwardly savoring the sense of sinking back into the deeply familiar but long-denied regimen of country life. Following Howlett from the study, he reached the front hall just as the doorbell pealed.

And pealed.

Howlett hurried to open the front door. Curious, Jack followed.

“I want to see his lordship!” an agitated female voice demanded. “It’s important, Howlett!”

Jack hung back, screened by the door. There was an incipient catch in the young woman’s voice that sent a shudder through him. Tearful scenes had never been his forte.

“What’s it about, Betsy?” Howlett sounded concerned, kindly and soothing.

“The church flowers!” Betsy wailed. “That old bat Swithins said as how his lordship had ‘
quite agreed with her
’ that she should do all the Sundays! It’s not fair—how could he give them all to her?”

Jack blinked. Howlett slid him a sidelong, questioning—clearly lost—glance.

Jack reminded himself he was a battle-hardened warrior. Mentally girding his loins, he stepped around Howlett, into the doorway.

Betsy saw him. She bobbed a quick curtsy. “My lord, I—”

“Come inside, Betsy.” Jack smiled his practiced smile and hoped charming the innkeeper’s wife would work. “I understand there’s some problem about the church flowers. I don’t quite follow—why don’t you come in and explain it to me?”

Betsy eyed him rather warily, but nodded and followed him in. Jack showed her into the study, where she sat perched, rather more nervously, in the same chair Mrs. Swithins had earlier occupied.

Jack had just resumed his seat behind the desk when Howlett tapped and looked in again. “Mrs. Candlewick and Martha Skegs are coming up the drive, my lord.”

Mrs. Candlewick was the cooper’s wife, and Martha helped in the inn.

Some of Betsy’s confidence returned. “They’ll be here ’bout the flowers, same as me. Swithins must have been real quick to find them to gloat.”

Jack inwardly sighed; he looked at Howlett. “Show the good ladies in.”

Howlett did, but rather than aiding in clarifying the situation, listening to three females simultaneously bewail the forwardness—the most complimentary term they used for what they saw as Mrs. Swithins’s encroaching on their rights and privileges—of the curate’s mother left Jack ready to pull out his hair.

His head was throbbing when he held up a hand, silencing the diatribe. “Ladies, I fear my decision on the roster earlier today was based on insufficient information.” His jaw set as he recalled how Mrs. Swithins had presented her case without any mention of the wishes of others. “I’ll revisit that decision, but first I want to consult with others to make sure that what I decide is fair to all.” To make sure he didn’t commit some other unwitting faux pas.

All three women appeared mollified by his pronouncement. They nodded in acceptance, their color still high but their agitation subsiding.

Rapidly canvassing his options, he asked, “Under the previous roster, who would do the flowers this coming Sunday?”

The three exchanged glances. “Her,” Betsy said. “Swithins.”

Jack nodded. “So there’s no real change, regardless of which roster we’re following, until next week. I’ll revise the roster and have it to you all, and Mrs. Swithins, before Monday. Will that suit?”

“Yes, thank you, my lord,” they chorused.

“Just so long as Swithins doesn’t get more than the Sundays she’s due.” The light of battle still glowed in Mrs. Candlewick’s eyes.

Jack rose as they did. “I’ll ensure the final roster is a fair and equitable one.”

They all accepted that assurance; Betsy even smiled as she shyly shook his hand and with the two older women took her leave.